Bitchitronics

Bitchin Bajas, which began as the project of Chicago's Cooper Crain, specializes in the kind of calmly interstellar music that feels unconnected to time, space, or trends. Bitchitronics, their fourth proper album, is a serene cloud of hovering tones and near-zero motion, full of sounds that feel so good that they feel like events in themselves.

You might not think a group called Bitchin Bajas would be making beatific drone music; the name suggests a drug-rug-wearing, Tuesdays-only Tex-Mex bar band. But Bitchin Bajas, which began as the project of Chicago's Cooper Crain, has grown into a trio that specializes in the kind of calmly interstellar music that feels unconnected to time, space, or trends. Bitchitronics, their fourth proper album, is a serene cloud of hovering tones and near-zero motion, an album of sounds that feel so good that they feel like events in themselves. The title sure sounds like a sly nod to Robert Fripp's Frippertronics, and the dazed spirit of Brian Eno and Fripp hovers like a mild uncle, but Bitchitronics doesn't feel overly concerned with any other music. It doesn't seem overly concerned at all. If you have absolutely nowhere to go in the near future, Bitchitronics will make an excellent travel companion.

Bitchitronics is made of three tape machines talking to each other: Two machines generate loops, the third records them. The loops start out as musical information, but quickly melt into shapes, and the Bajas surround those shapes with other, live instruments-- fluttering jazz flute, noodly guitar soloing. Sometimes the loop sputters quietly, like someone clearing their throat in church. Heavily reverbed guitars leave little condensed little raindrops of notes on their surfaces. A little bass enters; the bass recedes. At one point, an electric guitar arcs beautifully upward, but it's gone and forgotten shortly after it appears.

This doesn't sound like everyone's idea of a good time. I can sympathize; structure-free music meant to soothe usually leaves my nerve-endings seething, grasping for stimulus like the tubers shooting out of a dying potato. But the four pieces on Bitchitronics are so beautiful that their patient steadiness doesn't bore or irritate me. Making an album that makes doing this little sound so charming and inviting is no minor accomplishment. I can spend time with Bitchitronics' four pieces, let them decide how they're going to arrange themselves this time through. Each time, they settle a little bit differently.

"Reviewing" Bitchitronics is difficult, because isolating moments in an album like this feels like pointing out a particular section of a cloud. All four pieces seep slowly into view the same way-- a slow corona in a major key, one warm chord steadily accreting in size. The pieces swell into view, but once they're present, they don't build much further upon themselves; drone music often pairs nicely with grandeur, but the tones on Bitchitronics are often quavery and weak-sounding. This isn't visceral, or elemental music-- unlike, say, Oneida, Boredoms, Grails, Swans, Om, you can't imagine taking Bitchin Bajas to the desert. If you're going to use it to meditate, meditate indoors, preferably in a room with old carpeting and low shutters; if you take it outside, it might sound pale and timid. There are no revelations, no crashing waves. Their "om" is the 2 a.m. hum of a refrigerator.